My 6 gallon nano tank
- Thread starter wombat1
- Start date
Definitely no reservations. The color is awesome. The growth actually appears to be about the same, but I can't say for sure if this has anything to do with the light. Honestly, I haven't been around my tank on a daily basis for awhile and I'm beginning to neglect it a bit.
Because of this, and because I can take much more diligent care of it at home, I plan on eventually moving the whole thing into the refugium of my new 125 gallon (the deep fore reef biotope one)...40 gallons, with a surge device. The fish will go in the main tank.
So unfortunately the days of this nano are numbered. This won't be for at least another 6 months though, as the 125 is still empty. When it's finally broken down it will be around 1.5 years old.
Because of this, and because I can take much more diligent care of it at home, I plan on eventually moving the whole thing into the refugium of my new 125 gallon (the deep fore reef biotope one)...40 gallons, with a surge device. The fish will go in the main tank.
So unfortunately the days of this nano are numbered. This won't be for at least another 6 months though, as the 125 is still empty. When it's finally broken down it will be around 1.5 years old.This is a perfect thread candidate for the nano spotlight. Matt has done a great job with it, the thread has demonstrated his adept nano-design skills and it is full of great pictures for the setup. I know what you mean about lack of maintenence, I got to going almost a month between water changes in the reefbowl and it recently died ( I dumped out all the water and am letting it dry out for an educational design tank I can transport) after 2+ years, overgrown with red algae to the point I was embarrased to show it. So, if your tank is about to get torn down I'm not lettin' another great one go to waste without some much-overdue public acknowledgement. Heres your turn Matt!
OK I got a question
Is there any other NANO setup that you would have done, looking back. What I'm saying is would you rather have done a larger,smaller,different shape tank instead of the 12g eclipse.
I love the tank
Just wondering if there is something else you think you could have done more with, that is still the same approximate size.
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Spinal Cord Disorders Forum
Is there any other NANO setup that you would have done, looking back. What I'm saying is would you rather have done a larger,smaller,different shape tank instead of the 12g eclipse.
I love the tank
Just wondering if there is something else you think you could have done more with, that is still the same approximate size.
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Spinal Cord Disorders Forum
It's a 6 g eclipse...I think if I could have done it all over I would get a 10 gallon acrylic, for a few reasons:
1. SA to V ratio. A 10 has a bit more area to stack corals per volume.
2. Vertical walls. The bowfront is nice, but the back wall is angled slightly. This presents a problem when attaching a refugium with bulkheads--the fuge has to be tilted a bit and supported from underneath if you want a watertight seal.
3. Light availabilty. I was pretty hard pressed to find the light I wanted that would fit inside the hood. I'm now using a PQ pendant, which just looks kind of silly hanging off the sides. It would fit perfectly over a 10 gallon however.
4. Salt creep. Even though I worked my tail off to seal the main tank as best I could, the area between the brace and acrylic always develops salt creep on the front b/c of the high flow. An acrylic tank usually goes back an inch or two and would prevent this.
5. Room for another fish! I think I could probably have a pair of yashas in a 10, along with the firefish. They're both going in the 125 now anyway, so I'll probably try to find a mate for my goby.
I'm thinking the ultimate little nano would be a standard 10 (20" long X 10" wide X 12" high) divided on the short axis to make two boxes, one 15 X 10 and one 5 X 10. The smaller side would be a fuge/sump of course, lit by maybe a 24W PC. The main tank would have a 96W PQ, which would fit perfectly over the dimensions. There could be a Prizm on it too, if that type of thing floats your boat. I think the size of the fuge would allow for an Iceprobe if one was needed as well. I'm definitely going to put some undergravel plumbing on my next nano, as it's a great way to hide the plumbing and hit the corals with current where you want it.
1. SA to V ratio. A 10 has a bit more area to stack corals per volume.
2. Vertical walls. The bowfront is nice, but the back wall is angled slightly. This presents a problem when attaching a refugium with bulkheads--the fuge has to be tilted a bit and supported from underneath if you want a watertight seal.
3. Light availabilty. I was pretty hard pressed to find the light I wanted that would fit inside the hood. I'm now using a PQ pendant, which just looks kind of silly hanging off the sides. It would fit perfectly over a 10 gallon however.
4. Salt creep. Even though I worked my tail off to seal the main tank as best I could, the area between the brace and acrylic always develops salt creep on the front b/c of the high flow. An acrylic tank usually goes back an inch or two and would prevent this.
5. Room for another fish! I think I could probably have a pair of yashas in a 10, along with the firefish. They're both going in the 125 now anyway, so I'll probably try to find a mate for my goby.
I'm thinking the ultimate little nano would be a standard 10 (20" long X 10" wide X 12" high) divided on the short axis to make two boxes, one 15 X 10 and one 5 X 10. The smaller side would be a fuge/sump of course, lit by maybe a 24W PC. The main tank would have a 96W PQ, which would fit perfectly over the dimensions. There could be a Prizm on it too, if that type of thing floats your boat. I think the size of the fuge would allow for an Iceprobe if one was needed as well. I'm definitely going to put some undergravel plumbing on my next nano, as it's a great way to hide the plumbing and hit the corals with current where you want it.
And Matt what about this nano's DSB? Have you decided to keep this aspect? I ask this because I think I will quit. I am still of the school that tiny DSB's can be supported (for the purposes of housing sand critters, not nitrate reduction) with the right balance of feeding/current/export. But I also think that if there is large-scale mechanical failure (such as a building's heat/cooling going out) then a DSB Nano will be much harder to recuperate. Mainly due to the booming populations in the bed that can become stressed due to lack of O, reduced exports (for lazy water changers such as myself) or temp shocks. In my last nano with a DSB, most of my corals/inverts survived a temp spike but the system continued to decline for the next 4 months until I took it down due to a constant algae problem. the tank had gone for over a year and a half without a spot of algae, then bam. Not to jump on an anti-DSB bandwagon, but from now on my picos will have 1/2 inch beds that can be thoroughly turkey-basted at water change time. No critters, no detritus!
I would do the DSB over again. Maybe not necessarily a 5" thick one, but a 2" thick fine grained sand bed layer allows one to keep a wider diversity of animals, IMO. This is one of the most interesting aspects of reef aquariums, for me at least--the ability to witness more phyla in a little box than you might ever see on land in your lifetime. I never installed this DSB as a nitrate reducing tool--and I don't believe anyone should expect that to be its only purpose. For me, it's simply another habitat for creatures to live in that I can witness.
PICTURES! The trachy is way bigger...I never noticed this whole time until I looked at it night, but he has way more folds than he started with. It used to be a sort of hourglass shape, and now it has much more bends in the skeleton...
PICTURES! The trachy is way bigger...I never noticed this whole time until I looked at it night, but he has way more folds than he started with. It used to be a sort of hourglass shape, and now it has much more bends in the skeleton...
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And some more...a comparison of the unID'd Acro frag from a while back and today; the encrusting part is sending up vertical branches. The color difference in lighting is very noticeable. The other pic is (I think???) Pocillopora damicornis. I have a pink and green, this one looks green. I have no idea how this small frag got where it is, because it's on the other side of the tank from the main colony, and it is on a vertical face. The main colony was never in contact with this rock, either.
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Matt,
Thanks for the response.
I think I said 12 because I am thinking about one. I thought it would be cool to build one and have a standard 10 gallon sump/fuge under it. I was thinking lighting would be two 70watt MH's with 4 13watt act PC's.
The 2.5 is having tons of salt creep and a few other issues. So I figured a eclipse 12 with 10gal sump/fuge would be cool.
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Honda XR650L
Thanks for the response.
I think I said 12 because I am thinking about one. I thought it would be cool to build one and have a standard 10 gallon sump/fuge under it. I was thinking lighting would be two 70watt MH's with 4 13watt act PC's.
The 2.5 is having tons of salt creep and a few other issues. So I figured a eclipse 12 with 10gal sump/fuge would be cool.
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Honda XR650L
Thank you
A few new pics. Sorry, nothing new to report...I just need to put these pics on the web so I can access them for a talk I'm giving.
3665= Green Monti, and a view of the base plating and vertical growth.
The branch in the foreground is entirely new growth.
3668&3669= Acropora, A. tortuosa I think. The smaller piece broke off the larger colony, and has grown quite nicely in its little perch.
A few new pics. Sorry, nothing new to report...I just need to put these pics on the web so I can access them for a talk I'm giving.
3665= Green Monti, and a view of the base plating and vertical growth.
The branch in the foreground is entirely new growth.
3668&3669= Acropora, A. tortuosa I think. The smaller piece broke off the larger colony, and has grown quite nicely in its little perch.
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More community stuff...
3675= right side of the tank, top view. Right in the middle is Acropora (yongei?), the common name is 'bali slimer'. Directly above that is M. hirisuta. It's brown in the pic but closer to green or olive. To the left of center are two other un ID'd Acros. The bottom of the frame is purple M. digitata.
3674=left side of the tank, top view. The left side is green Pocillopora damicornis. The right side is the tentatively ID A. tortuosa.
3672=right side of the tank, side view. A bit better view of the M. hirisuta and its base plating
3675= right side of the tank, top view. Right in the middle is Acropora (yongei?), the common name is 'bali slimer'. Directly above that is M. hirisuta. It's brown in the pic but closer to green or olive. To the left of center are two other un ID'd Acros. The bottom of the frame is purple M. digitata.
3674=left side of the tank, top view. The left side is green Pocillopora damicornis. The right side is the tentatively ID A. tortuosa.
3672=right side of the tank, side view. A bit better view of the M. hirisuta and its base plating
Attachments
I'd be interested to know the frag details of this reef, what you have kept in and what has been transferred into other reefs. I was able to save a montipora frag for quite sometime, it was fun to keep a single colony going for over two years through lots of design changes.
Brandon M.
Brandon M.
It would be really hard to remember all the stuff that has come and gone in this reef. I try to keep a tiny bit of everything so I can grow it out.
I used to have a great big colony of purple M. digi...I broke it off at the base when I was trying to break off a branch, so I just gave the whole colony to the guy. Sean Hanser, a friend from campus, has a really cool tank that it's in now. I believe I gave him some xenia too. I still have a small branch of it, but nowhere near fragging size. I've given away a lot of green M. digi too, mostly to my old boss Mike Mutalipassi (aka Bleeding Blue). I've given a few frags to Arlan (undergrad) as well, I think the M. hirisuta and green digi. A guy named Greg (goshel?) from Sac has some frags of purple and green digi, and some xenia as well. A fellow bartender friend, Dan Wright, has some green and purple digi in his 125 g. A guy that helps us with our tanks, Andrew, has a nice zoo rock I gave him.
Sorry to drone on, this is more for me to remember than for you guys to read!
Oh yeah, Lord,
The stuff I listed is pretty much the only stuff I have available to frag. At the moment I'm breaking a lot of frags up and collecting as many different types as I can. I'll eventually be moving all these corals into a 40 gallon frag tank so hopefully I can offer more in the future.
I used to have a great big colony of purple M. digi...I broke it off at the base when I was trying to break off a branch, so I just gave the whole colony to the guy. Sean Hanser, a friend from campus, has a really cool tank that it's in now. I believe I gave him some xenia too. I still have a small branch of it, but nowhere near fragging size. I've given away a lot of green M. digi too, mostly to my old boss Mike Mutalipassi (aka Bleeding Blue). I've given a few frags to Arlan (undergrad) as well, I think the M. hirisuta and green digi. A guy named Greg (goshel?) from Sac has some frags of purple and green digi, and some xenia as well. A fellow bartender friend, Dan Wright, has some green and purple digi in his 125 g. A guy that helps us with our tanks, Andrew, has a nice zoo rock I gave him.
Sorry to drone on, this is more for me to remember than for you guys to read!
Oh yeah, Lord,
The stuff I listed is pretty much the only stuff I have available to frag. At the moment I'm breaking a lot of frags up and collecting as many different types as I can. I'll eventually be moving all these corals into a 40 gallon frag tank so hopefully I can offer more in the future.
OK, so a friend took down this tank in the last few days. I'm living in Bodega Bay for the next 5 weeks, so I really couldn't be around to maintain a nano reef. I'm keeping all the equipment, of course, so one day you may see another "My Nano" thread.
The corals and pistol shrimp are all going to a good home, fortunately.
The corals and pistol shrimp are all going to a good home, fortunately.
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